Avoiding Alistair the next morning was actually fairly simple, all she needed to do was wake up and leave before he had slept off the previous night's whiskey, something she had plenty of time for. The Alienage still being technically locked down rather worked to her advantage these days. The only way in and out - if you weren't inclined to go over the rooftops - was via the river, which was much less conspicuous than a parade of shem coming in through the front gate in full view of the guard. Because she needed to travel during the day, she bribed her way onto a longshoreman's boat at the Docks and he took her money and her upriver to the dock at the Alienage, where she jumped ashore, nearly losing her feet on the icy planks, and scurried around the side of the warehouse where all the nonsense had happened. When she got to her father's house, she was both surprised and amused to see that he, her uncle Cedrin, and a certain three hundred pound qunari were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea and playing dominoes.

"Ah! Teneira! I thought you'd be by soon," her dad said, answering the door, beckoning her in and brushing the snow off her hood and shoulders a little too aggressively.

"How are… things?" she asked hesitantly.

"This is an interesting game," Sten declared, "Much more interesting than cards." He had barely looked up when she walked in the door, preferring to focus on his tiles, and the spiderweb laid out on the table before him.

"Your friend here's been putting us through our paces," said Cedrin. She hadn't actually laid eyes on the man in some time. He was a good ten years older than Cyrion, but still had more black in his hair than gray - none of his eight sons until Soris had been the holy terror that was Teneira as a teenager, and by the time the youngest had made his debut, he had the parenting thing down pat. He had often been described as "shy," preferring to shut himself alongside his forge or in his household. Indeed, the few times she had seen him in public, he barely said two words. She suspected, though, given what her father had told her, that "shyness" was actually "spending his formative years in constant fear of slave hunters and thus being terrified of crowds."

"Ready to fight the whole city guard, eh?" she asked.

"If we need to," Cedrin said, gruffly, and laid a tile down on the table.

"You have foiled my next move," Sten said.

"Well I'm not going to duel you over it. Your move, kid." Ten chuckled inwardly at her uncle still calling her grayhaired father 'kid.'

Her father returned to the table and let her stand by the fire for a moment, warming her hands. She returned and examined the table, failing to make heads or tails of a game she'd never had the patience for.

"That is wise. You would lose," Sten said.

"Discretion is the better part of valor," said Cyrion, laying his tile down.

"Did you need me for something?" Sten asked. He frowned at his tiles again.

"No," said Ten, "I was looking for my cousins. I had no idea you were even here."

"He's been staying here," Cyrion said, "He keeps things tidy. More than I could say of you, daughter mine."

"How?" asked Ten, thinking of how the single, elf-sized bed in her childhood room wouldn't begin to contain the qunari's bulk.

"I offered him my room, of course, but he insists on sleeping in front of the door, by the fire," said Cyrion, "But, as to the cousins you've been leading astray for ten or more years, Shianni's at your stall. Soris… I haven't seen in days."

"He's been shutting himself up in his flat," said Cedrin, "For days at a time. It's very strange. Lydeia does what she can but…"

"What about his wife?" asked Ten.

"Nobody told you?" Cyrion asked, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Told me what?"

"Valora left," he said, "Not long after you went off with the Wardens. Can hardly blame the girl, after what happened. Just… took off one day. Didn't even leave a note. Marriage is officially annulled."

"Don't suppose I'll be trying to get him another wife," Cedrin grunted, "That boy's a walking disaster."

Valora probably got one look at my cousin with his clothes off and decided that Dalish were a better bet, Ten thought wickedly, "He didn't even mention that. Don't you think that might have something worth saying?"

"You had just pulled him out of a cage the last time you saw him, there were more pressing matters," Cyrion pointed out.

All the angst I've gone through over Nelaros and Valora didn't even merit an 'oh, by the way, she's up and gone'…

"All right, well, I guess I'll try to haul him back to the living," she sighed, "Just… so you know, it's almost over. I anticipate taking an ax to those gates before long."

"It's been strangely peaceful," said Cyrion, "Without the Tevinters, being locked down just means nobody can get in to bother us."

"You can't live like this forever," Ten said, "The outside world is going to creep in eventually."

"Oh, I don't doubt that, my girl, but let me enjoy it while it lasts."

"Sure, Dad," she said.

Soris's flat was two doors down and upstairs, so she didn't bother fetching her cloak and just tolerated the cold for the two-minute walk to his door. She climbed the stairs. She smelled it before she saw it. Moonshine and man-stink. She wrinkled her nose, and banged on the door with the side of her fist. "Open up! City guard!"

She heard movement from behind the door, and it finally cracked open.

"Ten, what are you doing here?" Soris asked. He was wearing pants but had not bothered with a shirt. He looked like he'd been crying.

"What on earth is going on with you?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said. He opened the door the rest of the way. The reek was definitely just from him, because his flat was relatively clean, aside from the pile of laundry in the corner, and the empty jugs stacked on the table.

"Ugh, how do you live like this? Take a damned bath," she said, "We've got business to attend to. I expect your head to be fully out of your ass within twenty minutes."

Like in most flats in the area, the bathtub was separated from the main living area by a curtain, filled by a reserve cistern in the ceiling when the weather was above freezing, and by hand with buckets from the well when it wasn't. She bustled in, saw that the water tank in the corner of the kitchen was, in fact, filled. Someone, her aunt Lydeia probably, had seen to it that the man had at least water in his place. She dipped a large bucketful out into a large pot and set it on the stove, lighting the charcoal therein and waiting for it to heat.

"Ten what are you doing here?" he asked again, but went and found a towel somewhere in the pile of cloth in the corner, and went behind the curtain.

"I'm calling a commoner's council, I need help to prepare," said Ten, "I'm glad I came for you first, Shianni could be with me at this point…" The city elves, at least in Denerim, were not a particularly prudish people, but while taking a bath behind a curtain talking to a blood relative was not a big deal, with anyone else it would definitely be weird.

"A commoner's council!" Soris exclaimed, poking his head out from behind the curtain, "Well that's exciting. Do I get to come?"

"If you get your shit together," said Ten, "And tell me what on earth could have you in this state."

"I can't tell you," he said.

"Soris, what's going on?" she asked, her voice a bit gentler this time.

"You're going to be so angry with me," he said.

"What makes you think that?"

"Because I've done something incredibly stupid, it's come to bite me in the ass, and I don't need you rubbing it in."

"I promise I won't." I hope I won't.

"I… shit, Ten," he said, "I can't even say it to you."

"Yes you can," she said, "Come on, tell me."

"I got a girl pregnant. Woman," he said, "And I haven't seen her in months. I've been… fucking beside myself."

"I'm going to guess that that woman is not your wife," said Ten, sighing and shaking her head. No wonder she left without saying anything. What a mess.

"Well I don't really have one of those anymore. Being quite obviously in love with someone else is sort of a dealbreaker for most people, go figure…"

"I'm not going to come down on you like a ton of bricks for being unfaithful to a spouse you didn't choose," said Ten, knowing full well that she herself, while having fully intended to follow the rules, could not have promised that she would have continued to do so, if everything had gone down much differently. Funny, I have no idea what I would have done. Knowing what I know about Nelaros now… who knows if he'd have even wanted intimacy of that sort, and I certainly wouldn't have… insisted. Who knows, maybe I would have sought out some comfort elsewhere… but discreetly, thank you very much. It sounds like Soris was just rubbing it in the poor woman's face.

"I wasn't," Soris said, "I didn't do anything after the wedding. With anyone. Not even Valora. I couldn't even bring myself to touch her. Poor girl, she didn't deserve that."

"So what, you knock some other girl up, her dad sent her to go marry someone else? Is that what's got you like this?"

"Well, not exactly. See, she was already married to someone else."

Ten did a mental inventory of all the women who'd come in from outside Denerim to marry a man in the Alienage. "So what, are you hiding out from her husband in here, drinking yourself into a stupor so you won't feel it when he comes to drag you out, beat you to death in the street?"

"Her husband's not… he died," said Soris.

"So what's the problem then?" She tested the water on the stove with her finger. It wasn't frigid anymore, but it certainly wasn't what you'd call warm, "But either way, she's widowed, you're… not married either. There are certainly extenuating circumstances, so assuming you're not related, what's to keep you from shacking up?"

There was another long pause. "Ten, she's human."

Ten had the sudden sensation of the room contracting around her and bright lights flashing behind her eyes. Before she could take a breath, tell herself to stop, not overreact, she had picked up the pot of lukewarm water from the stove and, modesty be damned, pulled the curtain aside and dashed it over his head. He made a high pitched noise as the mostly cold water hit him. She pulled the curtain closed again forcefully, not about to yell at a naked man while she could see him, "How stupid do you have to be, Soris?!" she exclaimed, "You're going to get lynched!"

"Bitch!" he responded through chattering teeth, "That was fucking uncalled for. Damned hypocrite you are."

"They don't string up elf women up for that," she said, "I didn't make the rules!"

"Fuck you, Ten," he chattered, "All your talk of liberty and equality and you're absolutely livid with me for doing the same thing you've been doing since you were thirteen years old!"

"I never got knocked up!" she shouted back, "And, even more importantly, I never fell in love."

"Bullshit," Soris said. Scrubbing noises came from behind the curtain. Apparently he'd gotten a whiff of himself and decided that a cold bath was better than no bath at all, "I call bullshit. Everyone saw you with that guardsman. If you hadn't loved him you'd have ridden him in a hayloft once and cast him aside like all the others."

"He's a halfbreed," said Ten, "And he's gone."

"But for all intents and purposes he was full shem. The fact that his father was an elf is a fucking technicality. You can focus on that bit to feel better about yourself, but at the end of the day, he knew nothing about what it was to be one of us. So, again, fuck you."

Ten sighed. He… has a point with that. At the end of the day, Anton had a worse attitude about us then half the other shem I know. She pushed another pile of laundry off one of the kitchen chairs and sat down heavily. She was silent for a few minutes, and finally said, "All right. I'm sorry. That's just… not news anyone who's cut a friend down from a tree wants to hear. I hope you'll forgive me. What are you going to do?"

"Well nothing until you bring me some clean clothes. Dresser in the bedroom."

She fetched him some clothes which were - again probably thanks to his mother - somewhat clean and handed them through the curtain.

"Well shit, cousin," said Ten, "You're gonna be a dad, huh?"

"I really, really fucking hope so," said Soris. He came out from behind the curtain, fully clothed but still toweling off his hair, "Ten, what if she just… goes? Takes off? Gives the baby to the Chantry… or worse. I'd never even know. She has two other kids, it's going to be bad for all of them if the baby comes out looking like me."

"I don't even know who this woman is, Soris," said Ten, "How would I know?"

This time, Soris looked away. He hung his towel up over the curtain rod. Still wet, his red hair looked black.

An elfin man with red hair and a human widow with two kids, where have I encountered that pairing before?

Maker's breath, Soris, of all the ridiculous…

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Ten said, her voice dropping, "So when you came to me with intelligence about Sergeant Rasphander, his kids' names, the blue shutters, the brandy in the cupboards…"

"Maylin kept the books at the warehouse," Soris said. He ran his finger through his damp hair, "And she… she hated Eddin so much. He smacked her around something awful. I swear it just started because she knew how bigoted he was and that nothing would hurt him more than being cuckolded by one of us."

"And you just went with it," Ten said, "Have you no dignity?"

"I'm not proud of it," he said, "At first it was just… you know, messing around in the office, after the boss went home, but then it was… Ten, I love her. I guess I thought I could just, I don't know, marry Valora and go on with my life and just put her out of my mind. And then everything that happened with you, and I'd just gone and played hero, on my own, without you goading me into it for once. I guess I just felt like, I just did that for a woman I married because I was told to, why couldn't I for the woman I love? And then it all just started feeling like a joke, and Valora, she knew. So I gave her some money, told her she could go home to Highever, tell her father there was something wrong with me."

Ten sighed, "Well, I guess the sooner we end this lockdown, the sooner you can figure out what's going to happen with that. I can't always be here to keep you from the lynch mobs, though."

"She's from Amaranthine. She doesn't have any family here," Soris said, "And, thankfully your copper lover took my suggestion about where to deposit the snake, so her husband's out of the picture. Guess he liked you a little more than he could admit as well."

"Anton's gone," said Ten again, "Please stop bringing him up."

Soris nodded, "Sorry."

"Soris, you're the closest thing I have in the world to a brother. I really am sorry I lost my shit like that. But I can't cut you down from a tree. I've always been scared for you, but this…"

"Ten, I love her," he said again.

"All right," she said, "All right. Well, I've got a scheme going, the biggest I ever did. It's going to protect us - you and me and everyone else - for generations. I promise. And I want you and Shianni with me, just like you've always been. Think you can get yourself together enough for it?"

"If it makes me feel less helpless than I've been? Give me something to do besides wallow here, feeling sorry for myself? Yeah I can do that."

"Good man," she said, "Come on, let's go find Shianni."

"And Ten? Just… keep this to yourself, will you?"

"Yeah, will do. Your dad would do a lot worse than pouring cold water on you."

Soris got socks and boots on, fastened his winter cloak around his neck. He still looked like shit, his cheeks hollow and the bags under his eyes, and the way he blinked when they got out of the building and into the midday sun, which was hanging low in the sky as it did all winter, told her he hadn't left his home in some time. They slipped and slid over the icy cobblestones to the end town square, where the stall that Ten had run, and now was in Shianni's hopefully capable hands, stood. The shopkeepers - Shianni, the baker's wife, who sold loaves in the square for those too lazy to walk the fifteen minutes to the bakehouse, and Yereni the fishmonger - were seated around a crackling fire behind their stalls, where they could see customers come up, but also keep their hands warm.

"Ten!" Shianni exclaimed, rising and rushing over to her cousin, "What are you here for?"

"How's business?"

"Shit!" she said, her voice no less bright. Ten could smell the moonshine on her breath, though it wasn't yet noon, "Shockingly, when no shem have access to the girls here, they don't need most of what we sell."

"That is… just so depressing," Ten said, shaking her head, "Close up for the day, then, I've got like three months of rent in my pocket. These fucking nobles have so much money they don't know what to do with it, makes me wonder why their wages aren't higher."

Obligingly, Shianni went and started putting flasks back in the little cart, and with some difficulty given how icy the streets were, the three of them managed to get it back to their flat. Ten took a mental inventory of cats as they all came to greet their mistress at the door. There's the Comtesse, and Hairball, Don Purrnando, and … "Who's this?" she asked, scooping up a thirty-pound ginger monstrosity with no tail who came to weave in between her legs.

"That's Bicky Junior," said Shianni.

"Aw," Ten sighed, remembering Bicky Senior, who had met his unfortunate end about a year after Ten had moved in. She hadn't particularly cared for the animal while he lived, but when he lost that fight with a particularly nasty seagull, it had certainly gotten to her. Bicky Junior, much like his namesake, seemed to appreciate Ten's company specifically, and started purring, a noise like the surf hitting the rocks.

"So, what's going on? Soris, why do you look like you've just been unearthed from an archaeological dig?" Shianni asked. She went to her cupboard and took down a bottle of moonshine dregs, pouring three cups, and motioning for the two of them to sit at the table.

"I could ask why you're pouring out hard liquor at eleven in the morning," Soris said, "I guess we're both going through it."

"Oh." Shianni said, as though only then aware of what time it was and that generally one did not start with the hard stuff before noon.

"Shianni… do we need to… talk about this?" asked Ten, "I can only handle so many peoples' personal demons at once, and let me tell you about some of the company I've been keeping…"

"Well we all know Sten," said Soris, chuckling and shaking his head, "I was the first one to get him to yield."

"Really!" Ten said, though she knew that Soris, while not particularly tall, was lightning fast when he put his mind to it.

"Well, I demonstrated to him how I would have cut the tendons in both of his ankles before he could get a downwards swing," he said, smiling for the first time she had seen that day, "He had a wooden sword, I had a paintbrush to show where the cuts would be."

"Good on you then," Ten said.

"And we have a theory," Shianni said. She looked at her glass, shrugged, and drank, "Since your dad got that longbow from the Tevinters. He's been showing off, now that there's nobody to see."

"Yeah," Soris said, his grin growing wider. He was back in his element, "Let's just say if you told me Cyrion put an arrow in the heart of a man across the river from the roof of Mallie Lee's apartment? I'd believe it."

"He's an old man, he didn't climb up on the rooftops," said Ten, not wanting to think too long on what Soris could be getting at.

"He's not that old. He's not even fifty yet," Shianni said.

"We both think there's more to your dad than you've given him credit for," said Shianni.

"He married your ma, after all," Soris said, "Over my dad's objections. And we all know how she was. They must have had something in common."

"There's quite a bit of distance between marrying a criminal queenpin and… I don't even want to say it," said Ten. She sat down at the table, shifting the cat's weight to one arm, and took a drink herself. I mean, it's here… "Anyway, Shianni, I'm calling a commoner's council. I need you there with me. You two have been at my side through all of it, and this is the biggest thing I'll probably ever do."

Quietly, she told them about everything she had planned. Both of her cousins' eyes went wide as she explained exactly what she had been up to since the incident with the Tevinters.

"You weren't kidding," Soris said, "This is big."

"It ain't small," Ten said.

"So this is… big big," Shianni said.

"I sent word to all of them, we're meeting in my war room in ten days. I'd like some new furniture, kind of want to show off, think you can procure something like that?"

"I think I can," Soris said.

"And we'll need to bribe some boatmen, though I'm sure the Captain can take care of transportation for the others. She's usually just happy to be included."

"I'll send out word," Shianni said, "So you mentioned Drystan, what does he have to do with this?"

"Remember that old copper?" asked Ten, "The one who met his unfortunate end after trying to extort all the shops in the neighborhood?"

"Kitheril Canty," Shianni said, "Yes, I remember him."

"And do you remember how he died?"

"Apoplexy," said Shianni, she narrowed her eyes.

"Loghain is an old man," said Ten, finding what she sought, "Sure, he's hale enough, but he's over fifty, maybe sixty. The strain of a Landsmeet, gone poorly, might just be too much for the poor codger."

"You're going to poison him? And get his valet to do it?"

"My dear cousin," said Ten, "It's what I do."

"A dirty copper is one thing, but a Teyrn?"

"He'd do the same to me," said Ten, "In fact he tried. Sent a lovely young man from Antiva to put a bolt in my back on the road."

"Ha, I think Sten talked about him," Soris said, "I'm assuming he's not the witch, the nun, or the crone, meaning he's either the fool or the reprobate."

"Pretty sure he's the reprobate," said Ten, "I am probably going to regret this, but… what does Sten call me?"

"The lunatic."

"Well, that's fair."

"Nice friends you've made," Shianni said, "I'm not being sarcastic at all, it is entirely in character for you to just gather the strangest group of people… But, Ten… an out and out assassination on a prominent political figure, that's a little over the top, don't you think?"

"You just basically accused my father of killing Arl Urien."

"Which was over the top!" Shianni exclaimed, "And got us in this mess in the first place. I liked this game better when we were threatening cops with smoke-wolves."

"I don't blame you if you don't have the stomach for it," Teneira sighed, "You were always the best of us."

"Why are you telling us this, and not your… little posse?" Soris asked.

"Because I know I can trust you," Ten said, "They'll ask questions. I'd have to explain the entire power system in this city from scratch, and most of them won't believe me. But you've seen it firsthand."

"You've always done what was right, if not what was…. Strictly moral," Soris said, "In any case, it'll be exciting to be on a Commoner's Council. Hasn't been one of those in years!"

It had, indeed, been ten or more years since the Commoner's Council had been convened. Ten herself had been a teenager, and of course she had attended, but had stood behind her predecessor, looking like a goon, but in fact she was there to observe and take in more than the previous arlessa could alone. She did not remember why it had been called, but certainly it was of less import than the one she had organized.

"So, I have a couple of them with me, as far as I know, but part of it is going to be convincing them that the Blight's real," said Ten, "Short of marching them all halfway across the country to see what's become of the Wilds villages, I have no idea how."

"I mean, why not just do it the way you do everything else?" asked Soris.

"What do you mean?"

"Body parts."

She helped her cousins finish the bottle - wouldn't want to be rude after all - and swung by her father's house. The dominos had been cleaned up, and Sten appeared to be examining some of Cedrin's handiwork - a hatchet and two knives. She swept in the door and all three men looked up with trepidation, knowing the look on her face.

"Sten, I need you after all," she said.

"What for?" the qunari asked.

"Something you've been itching for for months."

Sten put the hatchet down on the table. "Darkspawn?"

"Darkspawn."